The global Competitiveness index GCI has been compiled by Columbia University economists in NY since the 1970s and is based on these factors: laws and courts protecting company and worker rights; transportation, electricity, communications, and information Infrastructure; predictable inflation rates; sustainable budgets and debt levels; health and education systems; protecting basic worker rights; bank and financial regulations and soundness; business regulations and the cost to start a business; tariffs; research and development and patent applications; and the size of the country’s domestic and export markets. In response to the COVID pandemic, the GCI revised its Competitiveness index in 2020 to measure a country’s readiness to respond to societal weaknesses exposed in the COVID pandemic and to transform to 4IR, the 4th Industrial Revolution dominated by the internet and communications as contrasted with the earlier coal, oil and electricity revolutions. The new index measures a country’s exposure to populism; declining financial incentives in energy, emissions and social services; progress in eldercare and childcare; unemployment relief beyond simple furloughs where workers keep their jobs but lose pay; ease of finding skilled workers; incentives for alternative energy; and broadening access to electricity, information, and communication technology.
